26. Max
Max
Iwalked into the women’s locker room and found her there.
“Delia.”
She turned from her locker and smirked, already enjoying it. Down at the far end a shower ran on and on, and nobody moved to shut it off.
“What’s your fucking problem?” I shouted. “You couldn’t get at me, so you aimed a schoolyard at my little sister?”
“You want to know my fucking problem?” Whatever leash Delia kept on herself, she dropped it.
“He was mine. Years, he was mine. I built everything I had around him.” Her voice cracked wide open, pride and privilege bleeding through.
“Then you crawl up out of some mine and he’s done with me.
For you.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. “For something like you.”
“There’s nothing between me and Drakken.” I stepped in. “Even if there were, it wouldn’t get you my sister. You had a problem with me.” Steam crawled along the ceiling. “So here I am. Let’s settle it.”
First-years packed into the aisle, towels clutched to their chests.
“Weapons?” Cadet Reyes elbowed to the front, eyes bright, refereeing on her own authority.
I shrugged, eyes on Delia. “Pick yours.”
“No weapons.” Delia eyed my Coldiron armguard. “Bare hands.”
“Whatever.”
I stripped off my armguard and set it on the bench along the wall.
“Nobody fucking touches that.” I said it to the whole room.
One of Delia’s hangers-on, Cadet Petra, decided I was bluffing. The instant my back was half turned she grabbed for it, and the metal flashed white where her hand closed.
Not yours!
Petra’s scream came off the tile. She reeled back clutching her hand, the fingers burned to blisters, and two cadets hauled her out toward the healers at a run.
After that, nobody went near the bench.
Then Delia came at me. She was no joke. Trained since she could walk, academy-polished, every strike textbook and fast. Her first combination split my lip before I’d finished reading her stance, and the crowd sucked in its breath as one animal.
I was faster. But I was pulling everything, because I didn’t want to kill her in front of forty witnesses, and Delia was pulling nothing at all.
She fought like she meant to put me on a slab.
An elbow I half-slipped still filled my ear with bells.
A knee hammered my ribs, and the pain went white up my side.
Somewhere behind me a cadet whispered, “Gods. She’s actually hurting the Spartan. ”
My heel skidded on the wet tile.
I gave ground. Breathed. Read her.
“Why didn’t you just go with Xander?” Delia spat it between combinations, circling. “No war. Your precious crew still breathing.” Her mouth curled. “Bryn still breathing. Not that anybody’s crying over that freak—”
My knuckles met her cheekbone before the word finished.
The crack of bone snapped through the room like a dry branch breaking. Delia howled and staggered into a locker door, and the crowd made a sound that was half horror and half awe.
“Call my friend a freak again,” I said.
She swung wild after that, pain making her sloppy, and I took her apart in four moves and put her down on the tile. I stood over her with blood running off my chin and my ribs screaming, and I made it simple.
“Come near my sister again and I’ll fucking end you. That’s the only warning you get.”
I turned to collect my armguard.
“Curse!” somebody screamed.
It reached me before the word did, a foulness crawling up my back like oil. A killing curse, forbidden on this base, and Delia had gotten her hands on one anyway and thrown it at my back from the floor.
My Coldiron sat the length of the bench away.
Even calling the metal, I’d be too late.
The curse never reached me.
A river of fire roared across the space between us and ate the spell out of the air, gold and blue and hot enough to crisp the hair on my arms. The steam went out of the room in a single breath.
Dragon fire.
Drakken came down the aisle flanked by Thane and a squad of officers.
Someone had run for him. Cadets scattered out of his path half-dressed, grabbing for towels, and not one of them said a word about where he was standing.
His face was storm-dark, the cold gone out of those gray eyes, and his gaze cut between Delia and me.
Here it came. He’d have to choose between me and the woman he had history with. I wouldn’t bow if the choosing went against me.
I flung out my hand, and the armguard tore off the bench and flowed into twin sanjieguns in my hands. I braced my feet wide with the staffs up, watching them both like a lioness deciding.
Delia scrambled up off the floor.
“Drakken—” It came out wrecked, half a sob. “That bitch came in here for me. In front of everyone. You saw what she—”
She ran at him and threw herself into his arms. “Do something. Please.”
My grip tightened on the staffs.
His arms didn’t open.
His hand closed around her throat instead, and he lifted her clear off the floor. Her feet kicked at nothing. Her eyes flew wide, and for the first time since I’d known her, real fear came into Delia’s face.
Fear of the dragon.
“Max should’ve killed you and been done with it,” Drakken said. “She’s an heir. Equal to me and to every other heir. And you put a killing curse in her back.”
His grip tightened a fraction. Delia’s hands scrabbled at his wrist.
“You’ve got a quarrel with me, you come at me. You went at a little kid instead.” Something moved behind his face and got shut down again. “That girl is the closest thing to a little sister I have. That alone finishes you here.”
He held her there a moment longer.
“Go pack. Get the fuck out. If you’re inside these walls in an hour, I’ll come find you myself.”
He opened his hand and let her drop.
Tears poured down Delia’s ruined face. Drakken stood over her, cold and untouched.
I turned and walked out. The rest of it wasn’t mine to watch, and Delia had already taken her real pound of flesh. Her words had dragged all my grief back up into the light.
Bryn. Rogue. Kaid. Jace.
All the names on my ledger. All the ones I’d carry as long as I drew breath.